If Print Buyers Online (PBO) has its way, you’ll soon get a tax break for making sustainable choices in your printing. This week, PBO is introducing legislation that would amend the Internal Revenue Code “to allow print buyers a credit against income tax for the completion of sustainable print projects.” To be declared “qualified sustainable […]

For marketers looking to improve the sustainability of their print marketing programs, there is almost nothing more important than the role of the paper. For this reason, Wausau Paper has launched a new online community, Digital Space, for designers, printers, and other experts in digital print technology and applications. The site includes both a collaborative, […]

It’s the time of year when people are making resolutions to lose weight, better manage their finances, better manage their anger, and myriad other things. Is increasing your commitment to environmental sustainability on that list? As I wrote in my very first post for The Inspired Economist in the fall of 2008, the neat thing […]

I love when I hear about marketing campaigns that have a double benefit — they are more effective than traditional campaigns and they are greener, too. How does this happen? Typically, it happens because marketers make smarter use of their databases. They select out a portion of their customer databases and create more customized or […]

Three days ago, I blogged about the EPA’s Green Power Partners site, which lists the top green power users in the country. That post got more traffic in a day than my posts normally get in a month. That was very exciting for me. People clearly care about this issue. At least for me, when […]

I know I’ve been a bit like a dog on a bone about the fact that print is not necessarily the enemy, but I think it’s important. Marketers are being hit like a locomotive with the idea that e-mail and other electronic media are green because they don’t use paper, but there is a lot […]

In today’s marketing world, the paper industry is seen as the big, bad guy — the energy hogging, landfill-clogging waste producer that needs to be replaced by cleaner, more efficient electronic media. But is this really the case? The paper industry claims that the opposite is true. It points out that electronic media are huge […]

It’s a debate that’s raged in the printing and marketing community for some time. If you switch to electronic methods of communication, are you really greener than if you use print? Or by switching some portion of your print marketing to email or other e-communications, are you really helping the planet? International Paper has produced […]

I was just reading about a report on the psychographics of Hispanic teens, one of the fastest growing demographic segments—projected to reach 62% of the entire teen market in 10 years. Among other things, they are described as extroverted, outspoken, wired, and defined by culture. The top three media consumed by Hispanic youth are 1) […]

Like it or not, “green” is a relative term. If you purchase a truck that gets 18 miles per gallon, is that good or bad for the environment? If you were driving a truck that got 13 miles to the gallon, it’s good. The same applies to many marketing technologies. It’s easy to look past […]

Sometimes we think we have to change governments and corporations in order to see environmental change, but change is just as powerful when it happens one person at a time. And sometimes it’s easier to do. About a month ago, I made two posts about the environmental efforts of SunChips, a snack food company. I […]

More and more frequently, I’m seeing companies choose sustainability, not just as operational preference, but also as a marketing approach. They are marketing “green” or sustainability (because “green” and “sustainability” are different) as a way to connect with consumers and sell products. Thus, when I was contacted by Don Carli, senior research fellow with the […]

I’ve been seeing a lot of “green calculators” around these days. I love the concept because they accomplish two goals in one swoop: 1) they encourage businesses or consumers to take more environmentally responsible actions that 2) coincidentally also happen to help the marketer’s bottom line. The latest green calculator I saw was on my […]

Yesterday, I blogged about SunChips’ smart marketing use of its green message on its packaging and on its website. This morning, I began reading some of the informational PDFs I downloaded from its website about those environmental initiatives. I was intrigued about the company’s use of a new corn-based biopolymer being used take 30% of […]